KidsRights Index 2014

KidsRights Index 2014 now available. The KidsRights Index is the global measurement tool launched by the Erasmus University Rotterdam (International Institute of Social Studies and Erasmus School of Economics) that assesses the observance of rights of the child included in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in all countries in the world for which data is available.

The KidsRights Foundation together with the Erasmus School of Economics and the International Institute of Social Studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam launched in 2013 the KidsRights Index, which takes a scientific approach to charting the extent to which children’s rights are being implemented in both developed and developing countries. Existing data provided by two sources are used for compiling the KidsRights Index. These are: quantitative data published each year by UNICEF in the ‘State of the World’s Children’ reports and qualitative data published by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in its Concluding Observations. The KidsRights Index is based on five domains: the rights to

[1] life

[2] health

[3] education

[4] protection

[5] the enabling environment for child rights (consisting of factors such as legislation, allocation of resources and availability of data) which is required to facilitate the implementation of children’s rights in general terms.

In total, the KidsRights Index includes 16 quantitative and 7 qualitative indicators which, insofar as they are available, are systematically and similarly rated for all countries. The KidsRights Index also signals whether data are missing.

In the KidsRights Index 2014 the domains on the right to Life, Health, Education and Protection have been updated with the data available in 2014. The domain ‘Enabling Environment for Child Rights’ has been updated with all Concluding Observations adopted by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2013. These related to the following fifteen countries: Armenia, China, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Israel, Kuwait, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Slovenia, Tuvalu and Uzbekistan. Three of these fifteen countries score higher and the other three score lower on the KRI 2014 as compared to the KRI 2013. The countries involved are: China, Guyana, Israel, Kuwait, Lithuania and Luxembourg.